The most common form of distributed meeting today is the conference telephone call. Such mechanisms allow people to meet in several distant locations and interact in a real time fashion. There are however some severe limitations with such systems. Most importantly, there is no visual imagery. It is often difficult to keep track of voices and names without being able to see the faces. It is often difficult to understand what is being discussed without access to some visual cues, such as slide presentations and/or whiteboard activities.
Traditional video conferencing systems address some of these limitations. However, traditional video conferencing systems are large, expensive systems, often requiring a dedicated room. Such systems are usually quite complex, with thick instruction manuals, often further requiring trained personnel to maintain and setup for specific conferences.
There are inexpensive video cameras developed interface to a computer and with a microphone interfaced to that computer, can provide limited video conferencing capability. Such systems components have a number of limitations and problems associated with them. First, they are not a complete system solution to the video conferencing requirements. Significant software must be provided to integrate, synchronize and compress the audio and video generated locally with the rest the audio-video streams generated elsewhere. It is questionable whether an unaided computer can actually compress the audio-video stream quickly enough to keep it real time, with high enough visual resolution and audio noise suppression, to provide viable support at the available bandwidth. Often the cameras being used today lack the depth of field and resolution necessary to discern facial expressions of more than one person at a time. What is needed is an inexpensive, self-contained audio-visual support device complete with compression capabilities which can interface to existing computers to support portable audio-video conferencing.
Many business meetings require intensive use of whiteboards or some other writing device, such as flip chart or paper pads. Traditional video conferencing systems do not capture whiteboard contents well. The video conference system camera aimed at a whiteboard encounters a highly reflective surface. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to adjust the contrast and brightness to effectively capture the whiteboard contents within the time constraints of the meeting. While there are some less reflective whiteboards which are made for use with traditional video conferencing cameras, they are expensive and not considered a portable solution.
There are some whiteboard conference solutions able to accurately capture whiteboard activities. Some of these solutions are considered portable, employing technologies such as resistive touch screens. However, such systems are at the limits of what can be considered portable, with a 60 cm by 90 cm whiteboard weighing close to 10 kilograms, and with carrying case, often approaching 15 kilograms.
There is one known flexible, roll-able resistive touch screen whiteboard available. It rolls up into a carrying tube that also carries the collapsible stand that the screen is stretched over during use. It is expensive, with increasing cost as the display area becomes larger. The portability is further negatively impacted as the weight grows with the display area.
There are often situations where a projected window of a computer would be quite useful in a video conference. Such situations include meetings where substantial amounts of detail must be reviewed and possibly modified.
Engineering review meetings would often benefit from the ability to project schematics and other technical drawings onto a large display device and then be able to affect such drawings as one would with a standard pointing device, such as a mouse. Such meetings often need to take place in the video conference setting and are today quite cumbersome, lacking a straightforward, portable mechanism for local and distributed presentation and pointing.
Similarly, graphically oriented manipulation of presentations and other material in a marketing, sales, or publication setting is also inhibited by the lack of interactivity with remote participants being unable to manipulate these often large, computer based materials.
What is needed is a truly portable conference center, able to fit into a compartment of a typical portable computer carrying case and provide not only excellent white board capture and transference, but also provide the capturing and transference of both quality audio and video by the portable conference center users.
What is further needed is a truly portable conference center, able to interface with existing whiteboards and computers, requiring the minimum of user interaction to calibrate and setup for a conference session.
What is further needed is a truly portable conference center which provides a uniformity of service ranging from the small location meeting, to distributed meetings within a LAN, to distributed meetings within a WAN, to meetings distributed across them Internet.
What is further needed is a truly portable conference center, able to support a projected computer pointing device.